As can be seen in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and last quotes (plus the 25% of respondents saying Phoenix's light rail was a bad idea outweighing the 14% avid riders), light rail has gotten off to a bad start in Phoenix (I was strongly opposed to it from the beginning myself). First of all, the politicians crammed it down our throats by packaging it together w/ a host of much-needed bus pullouts around the Valley, rather than letting us vote on the measures separately. Plus, if I remember correctly, the rail cost $40 million per mile to build. If the last quote is correct, that taken w/ the fact that I've heard ridership has grown rapidly beyond expectations makes me think they should charge more for tickets. This would help reduce costs to taxpayers who don't use it & not only have to pay part of the bill but also have additional commuting hassle thanks to the slowing of nonrail traffic. Cars have to wait forever to turn left across the rail -- I think this may be contributing to the accidents (possibly some drivers are getting impatient & turning just as the railcars get started moving into their turning paths).
Nonetheless, now that we've been forced into this position, I hope that it improves. I'm glad to see that ridership is up & cars are not virtually empty as skeptics had predicted. I hope everybody gets through a learning curve & accidents become far less frequent. I hope it's contributing to the ASU Downtown spinoff (see map below): certainly ASU Main cannot handle parking & traffic for 40,000 students (it's bad enough they had to convert two lanes on Mill to metered parking). And I hope they can construct the planned extensions and any more additions at a more reasonable price w/ good demographic planning in order to reduce the traffic load on the roads & freeways during rush hour -- perhaps most needed is a branch extending from downtown westward to reduce the I-10 tunnel bottleneck.
